This boy was an only child. His mother stated that he had never been ill, but it is to be considered that she was a Christian Scientist. He was educated at home until he was 7 years 6 months old, learning reading and arithmetical processes through multiplication. He had read the _Young Folks' Cyclopaedia of Common Things_ "over and over." His chief interests were at this time games and reading and, to a lesser degree, animals and flowers. The following is a letter from his aunt, describing his home education: At the age of three he learned his letters untaught by anyone apparently, and was spelling words. It was felt that this would interfere with his learning to read later on, so he was taught to read by the phonic method. This was done with no more time and personal attention than any first-grade teacher, with ordinary numbers of pupils, could give to each one, provided she were generously supplied with different books, and not limited to one or two sets--state series or otherwise. A few months after his fourth birthday he was reading with independence and an almost perfect power to recognize new words. His only noticed failures were such foreign words as "Chevrolet" seen on billboards, and unusual words like "aisle," used without context, which he pronounced "alicie." His ease in reading was, of course, made possible, or at least greatly facilitated, by the fact that an effort had always been made to use an extended vocabulary in talking to him. Even at two, he would surprise acquaintances and strangers with expressions which meant no greater effort to him than a child's baby-talk; such as, "Oh, the spider has _attached_ his web to the board." This ability to read opened a new world, for he read car-signs, billboards, newspapers, magazines, and books. His books and magazines were carefully selected. His access to newspapers, especially the funny sheets, had the most questionable results. But _The Child's Garden of Verses_ and others proved a veritable dream world--as real as the everyday one. He once asked his mother, "Does Robert Louis Stevenson know when I'm naughty?" At another time he wrote a letter to some of the characters in another book. At the age of six he read _Swiss Family Robinson_ and _Champlin's Cyclopedia of Common Things_--the two books which have been and still are his favorites. Other books which he read before entering school at seven years were: _Overall Boys_, _Brownie Book_, Kipling's _Just-So Stories_ (read over and over for two or three years), Swift's _Gulliver's Travels_, Kingsley's _Heroes_, Aesop's _Fables_, Tolstoy's _Stories for Children_, Grimm's _Fairy Tales_, _Arabian Nights_, Barrie's _Peter Pan_ and _Peter and Wendy_.